Twitter acquires the key component for its music app, hits celebrities

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Twitter has officially announced the acquisition of We Are Hunted, a music discovery service that continuously scans the internet to identify the hottest new music in the world. With the acquisition, We Are Hunted will be shutting down, but its technology won't cease to exist. (Update below)

CNET first wrote about the acquisition in March, but it has now officially been announced by both companies. The We Are Hunted acquisition by Twitter comes as Twitter readies a standalone music app for iOS that will allow users to discover new music.

According to several reports, the We Are Hunted technology will be integrated into the Twitter Music application for discovery. Music will be streamed over SoundCloud if the artist has chosen to host their music on the service, and if a song isn't listed on SoundCloud, users will be directed to an iTunes preview.

Interestingly, just before Twitter announced the acquisition of We Are Hunted, well-known celebrity Ryan Seacrest talked about using the official Twitter Music application on non-other than Twitter.

playing with @twitter's new music app (yes it's real!)...there's a serious dance party happening at idol right now

Announcing the acquisition on its website, We Are Hunted said: "While we are shutting down wearehunted.com, we will continue to create services that will delight you, as part of the Twitter team...We wish we could say but we're not yet ready to talk about it. You'll hear more from us when we are."

Unlike Vine, Twitter Music is said to carry plenty of Twitter branding, with the familiar blue Twitter bird looking down from the corner of the app. CNET noted in March that there will be four main tabs for Twitter Music: Suggested, #NowPlaying, #Popular, and Emerging. The app will look to who a user follows and will base recommendations on that.

Twitter has yet to officially confirm Twitter Music, so no release date has been shared.

Update: AllThingsD chimes in to say Twitter Music will launch on Friday (12 April). Coincidentally alongside the launch of Facebook Home -- interesting timing.

Update 2: A webpage for Twitter Music has appeared online, with the inability to log-in. We suspect it is launching soon...

Update 3: Twitter Music has launched, but for celebrities and public owners only. We'll be on the look out for a launch to the masses in the coming days.